Mick McCarthy reckons Jeff Whitley has every right to feel hard done by after seeing red for the second time in 11 days.

The midfielder was sent off by referee Paul Taylor for a second bookable offence with seven minutes left of Sunderland's 2-0 win at Reading on Saturday.

Whitley was also sent off against Preston on March 10 and was due to start a three-game ban on Saturday, missing the league games against Derby and Sheffield United and the FA Cup semi-final against Millwall.

Now he faces an additional two matches on the sidelines - ruling him out of the testing trips to Wimbledon and Ipswich Town.

McCarthy has seen the video of the challenge on James Harper which led to Whitley's dismissal and thought the Northern Ireland international was unfortunate.

He said: "Both players jumped in and Jeff got the ball. They both went in in a similar line and their lad had no complaints afterwards.

"It was a very disappointing decision to send him off.

"But I won't bother appealing against it - I do not think it works, to be honest."

Sunderland's win saw them leapfrog Reading to move back into the top six.

McCarthy said: "It was important we won that game and it was a good three points.

"Steve Coppell had a lot of injury problems to deal with and we took advantage."